In the art of garage door operators and the like, it is conventional practice to provide a wall mounted console or controller for controlling the door operator by a person entering the garage from an interior room of a residential dwelling, for example, or exiting the garage into the dwelling interior. Accordingly, a wall console controller is typically placed on a wall directly adjacent the doorway between the dwelling interior and the garage for the convenience of the person wishing to open or close the garage door.
Since a wall console type controller placed as described above is a convenient location for leaving a message for a person or persons entering or exiting the garage through the aforementioned doorway, it has been determined that it would be desirable to provide a garage door operator wall console controller unit with a voice message recorder and playback device so that persons entering or leaving the garage could leave voice messages for or receive messages from other persons in a household, or other circumstances involving the location of the wall console unit. Individuals occupying a residential dwelling, for example, may wish to leave messages for other individuals who are likely to pass through the garage doorway. Accordingly, a message recording and playback device associated with a garage door operator console unit, of either a wall mountable type or a portable radio transmitter type, is a particularly advantageous combination. The present invention satisfies the above-mentioned desiderata in the art of garage door operator controllers, as will be further appreciated by those skilled in the art.